There will always be more ways to improve, more issues to solve, more features to add, and more things to launch.

There is always room for improvement.

Improvement is a constant process. Be it an individual, any entity, or any business, change must be embraced. We are heading towards a culture where innovation and improvement are given top positions. Digital businesses are thriving on one side, while, on the other, frequent changes and unsteady business structure can’t make it to the profitable revenue streams.

We have been observing a change, change in everything, how we use technology, how technology has changed us and our ways of businesses, and how it is developed. Everything is getting a makeover with a fundamental or subtle change.

It is quite interesting to observe the radical changes in software development. Not only tools and technologies but also an approach to software development has radically changed. From ‘Novel’ to ‘Need’ and from ‘Project’ to ‘Product’, the software has been redefining the ways of communicating and getting things done.

‘Project To Product’ journey has made us think how software is being treated as a ‘product’ and why it makes sense to explore the new trend of product engineering.

So, here we are, explaining all you need to know about product engineering services.

Product Engineering: Agile, Apt, And Adaptable

Product engineering refers to the process of innovating, designing, developing, deploying, and modernizing cutting-edge products that can cater to ever-changing business needs.

According to Markets and Markets, the product engineering services market is expected to reach $1,003.12 billion by 2021, denoting CAGR of 8.2% from 2016 to 2021.

Here, a product is not just limited to software – it could be a combination of software and hardware, various IT services, a subsystem, or an embedded system that is designed accomplish a set of business objectives.

Here, a ‘Product’ represents a broad term including the convergence of technologies, smart renewable energy solutions, modern communication technologies, emerging IoT products, and advanced digital solutions.

Need For ‘Product Culture’ In Highly-Connected Digital World

Before we understand the phases of product engineering, let us explain why there is a need to treat digital solution as ‘product’ rather just a ‘project.’

Why ‘Product’ Culture?

It reinforces innovation

It brings agility

It accelerates the release of products or services

It helps build quality, sustainable products right from ideation

It helps identify issues quickly

It merges people and processes

It fosters growth

It is faster than traditional development approach

It maximizes user experience through frequent updates and modernization

With the rise of concepts like AI and IoT, software products are not just limited to one deployable system on servers; instead, it became a combination of sensors, hardware, electrical devices, networks, and software. It goes beyond the traditional website and a simple mobile app to accomplish the need for dynamic business landscape.

Product engineering life-cycle goes through five phases, starting from conceptualization to the modernization.

Phases Of Product Engineering:

Ideation(Conceptualization)

Product Architecture

Designing and Developing

Product Testing

Product Modernization & Re-engineering

Let’s Explore How These Phases Make Complete Product Engineering Lifecycle:

Product Ideation(Conceptualization)

Unlike software engineering, product engineering focuses on delivering the end product right from product ideation. In this phase, the product engineering team conceptualizes the idea and verifies the scopes of ideas/concepts along with specifications and feasibilities.

Product Architecture

After the idea is tested, the team works on architecting the product by deciding the functional elements, flows, blocks, and components. It is one of the important stages where team validates the idea and does the changes in concept if they find anything impracticable.

Product Designing and Development

This phase concentrates on UX design or assembling the product using the latest methods and iterative approaches. This phase requires effective project management skills to deliver product faster and with maximum efficiency.

Product Testing

Quality is the key differentiator in any successful product development. Covering every possible parameter and test case, product engineering team uses the latest automated tools and practices to check the product thoroughly. Effective testing is essential to scrutinize the product and fix the issues before the product launch.

Product Modernization & Re-engineering

Here product engineering services differ.

You can’t sit ideal once your product is released. You need to continuously analyze, add, modify, and update your product as per market needs. Periodically, customer demands and market scenario will change and you would require frequent product upgrades to fulfill ever-changing customer requirements.

This whole life cycle makes innovation and updates as an integral part of product development and helps organizations to deliver unparallel user experiences.

After knowing each stage in details, you might think that product engineering is similar to full-stack development but it is not wise to agree on that.

Here’s why product engineering service and full-stack development are different.

Difference Between Product Engineering & Full-Stack Development

The key difference is of purpose.

The purpose of product engineering is to deliver the final product right from the ideation to the updates, while full-stack development targets technical proficiency of front-end development(user interfaces), back-end development(databases, system architecture), and so on.

Both these terms have a vast difference in skills. For example, the product engineer must-have skills to look at the bigger picture of customers’ needs, analyst mind, deep understanding of the product, knowledge of technologies to guide, and ability to work with designers, data scientists, analysts, marketers, and so on.

They must know technical barriers as well as business aspects to help gain maximum ROI. In short, a product engineer helps shape product, assists the team with strong technical guidance, thinks from business perspectives, tackle failure, and looks for product evolvement over the course of time.

On the other side, the full-stack developer must possess a high level of programming skills along with execution skills. They must have knowledge for various tools and technologies for front-end and back-ends to deliver software products with a focus on faster time-to-market and quality. To be precise, full-stack development is not related to product evolvement and not has specific goals to measure synchronization between customer demands and product enhancement.

The ultimate goal of any product engineering services is to deliver an end-to-end product with the help of product ideation, development, testing, continuous enhancement, and best business engagement models.

Also, many have encountered product engineering is the same as DevOps, a modern approach to software development but, here is the truth.

Similarity Between Product Engineering And DevOps:

There are many people who think that product engineering services are similar to DevOps in some way or the other.

But the reality is, they share a common philosophy of iterative development and continuous advancement of the product.

DevOps is the modern way of developing a product with great agility and efficiency by following modern practices of continuous integration and continuous deployment. With the same mindset, product culture emphasizes on frequent updates to engage the customers in an innovative manner.

Product engineering – this term has gained significant popularity and organizations are exploring this term to enhance their business operations keeping a close eye on customer needs. With the powerful combination of insights, analysis, and innovation, product engineering service is helping organizations to see beyond technology. It empowers enterprises to make the best use of ‘product’ culture by using growth-oriented and change-driven strategies.

Author: SPEC INDIA

SPEC INDIA, as your single stop IT partner has been successfully implementing a bouquet of diverse solutions and services all over the globe, proving its mettle as a boutique ISO 9001:2015 certified IT solutions organization. With efficient project management practices, international standards to comply, flexible engagement models and superior infrastructure, SPEC INDIA is a customer’s delight. Our skilled technical resources are apt at putting thoughts in a perspective by offering value-added reads for all.